D&D General What are your Pedantic Complaints about D&D?

[Arnwolf666]

Personally I like how the Linguistics skill works in pathfinder.

 

[Monayuris]

As a side note, your players are right. It's right in the PHB under the description of Healing Potion (pg 153). "Drinking or administering a potion takes an action.". This is also echoed to be true for all potions in the DMG, page 139.

Fair enough.

I chalk it up to rules in a new edition that I didn't bother reading since I'm used to the older editions way of doing things.

I still would house rule against this though. I think one could administer a potion to a conscious character but I would maintain that one couldn't do so to an unconscious one.

The thing with 'pedantic complaints about D&D' is that whatever edition presents such complaints and whatever complaints you have you can simply house rule the game to avoid them. I propose that once you buy the rule books, the game belongs to you and your group... do so with them as you please.

I know AL doesn't work like that, but I really don't care about AL.

 

[Azzy]

2. Automatic Crossbows. Get that nonsense out of here.

But repeating crossbows were real.

3. Studded Leather Armor. What do the studs even do?

The way studded leather was originally described in the 1e DMG makes it sound like brigandine armor, with the "studs" being the rivets that attach the metal plates to the leather/fabric.

 

[Azzy]

This leads into a whole other field of study, should one be so inclined, and that's to go through the Monster Manual, find all the cross-breed races (e.g. Tabaxi is part human, part cat), and then from there figure out what can in theory breed with what and-or have what in its bloodlines. Can, for example, a half-orc breed with a half-elf and produce an offspring that is genetically 1/4 elf, 1/4 orc, and the rest human?

I did this a long time ago using 1e's MM, FF, and MMII; and the results were rather staggering: a chart on a big piece of paper with lines connecting inter-breedable races that ended up looking like a plate of spaghetti. And that's before throwing in things like shape-shifting deities (consider the myths of deities like Zeus and Loki impregnating humans), demons, devils, and the like.

Ever since then, every character rolled up in my games gets a roll during char-gen to determine if there's anything unexpected in its bloodline - are you, for example, a distant descedant of a deity...or a devil, or an orc, or a cat...

So, back to topic: peeved that nobody, either in official D&D or a 3rd-party, has ever published anything like this even as a magazine article.

Have you considered that it's your turn to shine?

 

[Lanefan]

I still would house rule against this though. I think one could administer a potion to a conscious character but I would maintain that one couldn't do so to an unconscious one.

If memory serves, I believe IRL that if an unconscious person is put into the correct position to avoid choking it is in fact possible to get a liquid into him-her, as swallowing is a reflexive action much like breathing.

Given that, no reason not to allow it in the game.

 

[Monayuris]

If memory serves, I believe IRL that if an unconscious person is put into the correct position to avoid choking it is in fact possible to get a liquid into him-her, as swallowing is a reflexive action much like breathing.

Given that, no reason not to allow it in the game.

My thought was that it was dangerous to do so. Perhaps I'm wrong on this. I will keep it a complaint, but maybe I should adjust my rulings on this, going forward.

My largest complaint is that there are already so many ways to circumvent the threat of death in 5e that making potion administration so easy just adds to it.

 

[Lanefan]

My thought was that it was dangerous to do so. Perhaps I'm wrong on this. I will keep it a complaint, but maybe I should adjust my rulings on this, going forward.

My largest complaint is that there are already so many ways to circumvent the threat of death in 5e that making potion administration so easy just adds to it.

Fair enough. I'm coming from an old-school background where sometimes it's the healer that's down and if you don't get that potion into him half the party are hooped...

 

[Imaculata]

But repeating crossbows were real.

Oh absolutely. But I dislike the D&D version. They are like crossbow machineguns.

The way studded leather was originally described in the 1e DMG makes it sound like brigandine armor, with the "studs" being the rivets that attach the metal plates to the leather/fabric.

I recently got the Pathfinder Ultimate Equipment book, (which is an amazing comprehensive book btw) and my eyes almost shot fire when I read the description of Studded Leather Armor. It was so dumb. How do they keep getting this wrong? Is anyone going to correct this at any point?

"An improved form of leather armor, studded leather armor is covered with dozens of metal protuberances. While these rounded studs offer little defense individually, in the numbers they are arrayed in upon such armor, they help catch lethal edges and channel them away from vital spots. The rigidity caused by the additional metal does, however, result in less mobility than is afforded by a suit of normal leather armor."

Another pet peeve of mine: Weapons with garbage stats. I hate it when there's a boatload of weapons in the player's handbook, and half of them no one in their right mind would ever consider taking, because of their poor damage. Then what's the point of having them at all? Do you really want to be the one in the party not pulling their weight, because you thought having a whip as a weapon was cool?

 

[Blue]

My thought was that it was dangerous to do so. Perhaps I'm wrong on this. I will keep it a complaint, but maybe I should adjust my rulings on this, going forward.

My largest complaint is that there are already so many ways to circumvent the threat of death in 5e that making potion administration so easy just adds to it.

I'm fine with your house rule and the reasoning behind it if that works for you and your table.

For me, the fact that a potion will take immediate effect implies that the "fantasy world physics" treat it as a magical effect and has nothing to do with going into the stomach and then the bloodstream. Rather that it's a vehicle for a magical effects much like a wand or other consumable, where the act of drinking evokes it.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*